Keisha Thompson was the recipient of the 2023/2024 YSP/Laureate Fund Residency supported by the T. S. Eliot Foundation, which has been made possible by YSP Trustee and Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage.

Throughout her residency, Keisha focused on a triangle of themes – mathematics, identity and nature-connectedness, thinking specifically about the resonances between natural hair and the YSP landscape. In September 2023 Keisha celebrated World Afro Day with a weekend of events at YSP; in January 2024 she performed with the Light Organ; and in March she concluded her residency with a final performance and publication.

As well as being a writer, performance artist and producer, Keisha was the first Black woman, first Mancunian and the youngest person to be Artistic Director/CEO of Contact Theatre in Manchester.

Throughout the year of her residency, Keisha spent time in the Park walking, wandering and writing. This time spent connecting with nature and exploring sculptures amongst the landscape inspired Keisha’s latest collection of poems – Dérive – which was published by YSP in March 2024 and is available to purchase from YSP Shop.

Keisha has curated a series of self-guided poetry walks for visitors to experience while at the Park, which are available to experience via the Bloomberg Connects app. Choose between four guided routes around the park, each with a different distance, duration and direction, all curated to encourage your mind and your body to wander.

Residency Reflection

At the start of any project, I open a new notebook. The one I chose for this residency was a moss green B5. A textile cover with a stitched title – Journeys. Upon opening it, I was pleased to find a passage.

“A journal is a small, elegant tool that makes up for our endemic forgetfulness. It sums up mental and physical travel; it gives longer life to fleeting inspirations and sensations; it decodes experiences; it preserves the treasures we have stumbled upon along the way. It will stand as a record of who we are.”

I shared the full thing with Sarah, (YSP Senior Curator) before we headed off for our walk around the park. I am pleased to say that this was not my first visit. I had managed to orchestrate a family trip just before the lock-down. But this tour was different. It was an utter privilege to go on a 1-1 in-depth excursion.

As we walked I started to consider what I might bring to the table. I was pretty certain that I would be making connections between nature and mathematics. And that was not me being influenced by Robert Indiana’s ode to numbers in his visiting exhibition. Albeit extremely resonant and though-provoking.

Following our tour, I got to meet the rest of the amazing YSP team. And things essentially carried on in that vein. I can truly say that I never felt more welcomed by a team than I have during this residency. Moreover, I have met the most exciting artists and feel like I am very much part of a community.

One of the biggest surprises me for was how much I felt inclined to talk about hair. I had recently done a project where I looked at Emma Dabiri’s book, Don’t Touch My Hair, in which she explains that many African communities use language to describe hair that is akin to nature. Afro hair is compared to rose bushes and grains for example.

As soon as I articulated this to the YSP team, everything started to fall into place. My questions to myself: “what is the definition of sculpture?” “What is sculptural poetry?” “What is the dérive?” “How can mathematics be decolonised?” “How can nature be decolonised?” They all started to make sense within the context of me thinking about my relationship with hair.

World Afro Day fell slap bang in the middle of my residency. I did a performance in James Turrell’s Skyspace and went on an Afro Day walk with some families. I lead a workshop and performed alongside Thabo Mkwananzi and Aron Kyne in response to Akeelah Bertram, Adam Glatherine and Simon Fletcher’s Light Organ. There were many more highlights that I do not have space to expand on.

By the eighth month, I knew what I wanted to create. A performance, a book and some audio-guided walks. They would all fit under the title of “Dé-Rive”. My de-colonialist ode to Guy Debord’s Dérive.

So now that I am at the other end. I can reflect on how this residency has impacted my practice…When things feels too big for me, I defer to lists.

• Created a new poetic form
• Created a new collection of poems
• Made connections with artists who I am working on other projects with
• Made new friends
• Thought about my leadership role and took note from what I witnessed at YSP as an organisation
• Tested new ideas around how I can share my mathematical pedagogy
• Visited new cultural spaces and discovered new artists in Wakefield, Leeds and Sheffield
• Saw my first audio-described dance show
• Created audio-guides for walks for the first time
• Learnt about how sculpture artists work with teams to realise their works
• Learnt about meadows and cultivation of plants
• Other brilliant things that I know I am forgetting

My artistic journey has been vast and unquantifiable. This write-up merely scratches the surface of how it feels to have been held in this wonderful cultural beacon for a whole year. The park is officially my second-home.

About Keisha Thompson

Keisha Thompson is a Manchester based writer, performance artist and producer.

Keisha is Artistic Director and CEO of Contact, Manchester, Chair of radical arts funding body, Future’s Venture Foundation, an ITC board member and recipient of The Arts Foundation Theatre Makers Award 2021.

Recent works include children’s show, Issy, BOSSS & Fractal. Commissioned by Fuel Theatre. Directed by Alan Lane (Slung Low); The Bell Curves supported by Eclipse, York Theatre Royal and Pilot. An all-female show that clashes science and culture by looking at the medical ethics linked to CRISPR-Cas9 technology; and 14% supported by Talawa Firsts, an immersive theatre piece looking DNA tests and structural racism particularly within the context British football culture.

In May 2022, she completed a residency with Esplanade Theatre in Singapore. Her focus was on her on-going project, DeCipher. The expansive educational project, looks at mathematical pedagogy and how it can be taught in a creative way in non-educational spaces. She is working to find out how it can be decolonised, democratised and dismantled. The goal is to create interactions that allow for agency, joy and discovery. A maths lesson that feels like a poetry workshop, a dance class or an interaction installation.

In 2020, she finished touring award-winning solo show, Man on the Moon. Her debut book, Lunar, features her poetry and the show script. This book has recently been reprinted after selling out 250 copies. Whilst Moonwhile is a poetic mini album featuring music from the show.

In August 2020, she released a new mini album,Ephemera, in collaboration with Tom “Werkha” Leah and featuring riveting cellist, Abel Selaocoe. Performances of the album have included We Out Here Festival and Timber Festival. It was named as album of the week by Jazz FM DJ Tim Garcia.

She has supported artists such as Kae Tempest, Hollie McNish, The Last Poets, Saul Williams, Amiri Baraka and has performed in Brave New Voices festivals 2008 & 2009. Her work has been presented at venues high profile venues and platforms such as Tate Modern, Blue Dot Festival and the British Council Showcase in Edinburgh.